When the red becomes the memory

----About the standpoint and the meaning of Ren Hong’s “red memory series

Since the emergence of Pop Art, the use of various public images has become a habitual practice among artists. However, when post-modernism comes out, which challenges the modernism idea that emphasizes individual character and creation, we must recognize the importance of the standpoint and style coming from artists using public images. So when we reflect on the modern art in China in the 90s of the last century, it can be easily found that those figures, such as Mao, have been used by many artists in their works as a typical sign because they possess special political and cultural meanings. And this style has become a Chinese contemporary art phenomenon; thus, these artists’ standpoint will be the basic starting point when we discuss it. In general, around the 90s in the last century, political Pop Art expressed the artist's puzzle about the special period, 1989- 1992, who experienced the “85 New Wave Movement”, and also show their self-reflection and critique on Chinese reality after 1992, another revolutionary age with the market economy. After 1995, those critiques and reviews on the revolutionary age, perplexity with jokes, began to be amplified and formed a strong cultural strength. But this makes people who did not experience that time puzzled, what is the real history? The female artist Ren Hong shows us the red time that is full of passion and turbulence through her own style. In the “Red Memory Series”, the pigeons, arrow points, and other patterns are spread all over the painting, which presents us with a kind of visual effect as illusions. That complicated art language, but full of texture, informs those yearn for her childhood and the time that was filled with dream and romance. All of these are expressed by focusing on depicting Mao. So, in my opinion, it is the individual standpoint of Ren Hong’s work, and the key point that we will explain here. 

In my view, when it comes to using Mao’s images, there are differences from most contemporary artists in Ren Hong’s work. In brief, by observing the standpoint and style in “Red Memory Series”, there are some characteristics followed: first, Ren Hong used Mao’s images positively. Mao, in her description, stood in the rostrum of Tiananmen to wave hand in greeting, or talked with the populace intimately, or investigated in village. She attempted to return the original figure that impressed her, which was a gentle elder, a wisdom leader, an idol who was unable to substitute. Probably, there are no special meanings for those who experienced that time. However, if we stand in a contemporary point, compared with the images that created by the artists, who tended to political pop in the 90s in the last century, we will find Ren Hong’s unique. At the beginning, the artists often deal with Mao’s images from the perspective of self-reflection and critique with checks or criticism. In fact, all of these contain a profound reconsideration of that time. But Ren Hong expresses an opposite meaning, although she adopted a similar form. She used those public images that undertake the collective memory, nevertheless, she inclines to express childhood’s memory by individual angle. Certainly, this is obviously distinguished from works in the later period of political Pop Art, which are ridiculous and vulgar, or even smears Mao’s images. Second, when it comes to the art language, Ren Hong likes to choose red as the basic color tone in her paintings. She named her work “Red Memory” appropriately as well. Actually, red is not only the symbol of those days in “Red Memory Series”, but also represents the way of the artist recalling that time. In other words, when Mao’s head portrait was set off by innumerable red flags close to the wind, the painter not only recalled that time, but the reminiscence is also full of passion. Although we do not wave our fists again and the red flags do not swing with the wind, why is the red memory still so precious in the modern society, which is full of material desires and lures? When our society is in an unequal competition, which results in a large gap between the rich and poor, perhaps the Utopia in Mao’s thought shows us a more real meaning. To some extent, this is the real thing that Ren Hong wants to express with her recall of red time. 

Moreover, Ren Hong’s most distinguishing feature is the intense design feeling in her paintings. She puts flags, arrow points, pigeons, and other patterns in line again and again in whole pictures to create a kind of dreamlike beauty. Because the changes from color to pattern link up very well, which results in enormous aesthetic enjoyment, at the same time, the viewers will be surprised by the skills of expressing this kind of visual effect. But this aesthetic enjoyment does not come from the paintings themselves, but exists in the communication between viewers and paintings. At the same time, those massive same patterns’ juxtastandpoint continuously causes the vagueness in images, and also results in the visual effect in depth. So we could say that the whole appearance of the picture is similar to a jigsaw puzzle, just as the combination of people’s memory, which has been crushed down to fragments by historical wheels, or the painter depicted these yarns with patterns on canvas to pursue a kind of distant feeling to retrospect history. Anyhow, the excellent design in the painting creates a different visual enjoyment and shows the painter’s superior skills. Of course, the skill is only the way to reach an idea state, what Ren Hong really wants to do is that she wishes to build a real but also memorable world with art marks. As Pulust said in <Time flows like a stream>, “the true life is the rebirth of life, which comes from the recreation of memory.” But the differences between Pulust and Ren Hong lie in the fact that one depended on rich language, while the other was assisted by the reconstruction of images. However, the reconstruction in “Red Memory Series” basically hopes that the people who experience the revolutionary age can remember the complex and colorful meaning of their life forever, when we are living in such a time, without shouting slogans and waving fists, or even lacking self-reflection.

2007/6/8 wrote in Chongqing by Zou Yuejin

Ps: The bold part does not have the original text of the book